Travelers Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Superior Court of Santa Clara Cty.

I. Introduction

This matter arises from the efforts of Lockheed Martin Corporation (Lockheed) to obtain insurance coverage for its multimillion dollar liability for cleanup of environmental contamination at 13 sites in California and other states. One of those sites is the Operating Industries, Inc. (OII) landfill in California. Insurers Travelers Casualty and Surety Company and Continental Insurance Company sought summary adjudication of their duty to indemnify Lockheed with regard to the Oil site. The trial court denied the insurers’ motion for summary adjudication on grounds of the insurers’ failure to provide complete copies of their insurance policies and their failure to establish that Lockheed’s claim for indemnity was barred by the policies’ pollution exclusion.

The insurers filed a petition for writ of mandate seeking review of the denial of their motion for summary adjudication, and we issued an alternative writ. We hold that the trial court erred when it denied the insurers’ motion for summary adjudication, because the insurers submitted sufficient evidence of the relevant terms and conditions of their policies and because we conclude that Lockheed’s claim…